


Lost Touch

by Naomida



Series: Howl at the Moon [6]
Category: Fantastic Four, Marvel, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Everyone Needs A Hug, Gen, M/M, POV Multiple, Pack, Werewolf Mates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 10:05:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7166759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naomida/pseuds/Naomida
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victor finds a solution to his problem and no one is happy about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost Touch

“I won't let you do this.” dangerously hissed Sue, having to actually use all of her will-power to keep a tight grip on her wolf.

The last time her control had been so thin was when she had had to almost force Namor to join her pack, so many years ago, and if there was one thing she didn't want right now, it was to have the situation escalate because she couldn't stay in control long enough to keep Victor from doing something stupid.

“Sue.” he calmly replied, meeting her eyes in a show of utterly stupid arrogance. “I don't exactly have a choice.”

“Like hell you don't have a choice!” she immediately snapped back, her nails turning into claws when she closed her hands into tight fists, the pain keeping her a little more grounded.

Of course Victor had chosen the moment when they were totally alone in the house to tell her that. Of fucking course. He wasn't _that_ stupid and he knew her. Having Jim or, god forbid, Loki around would have forced her to keep a tight leash on her anger. She wouldn't have hesitated to order him to forget about his stupid idea and go cuddle with his mate for an hour or two.

With nothing and no one to focus on apart from Victor and his haunted eyes, she would react on instinct and emotions instead of logic.

“You have the choice to get your head out of your ass and actually stop being so stupidly proud.” she said between clenched teeth.

Victor just blinked, his eyes not leaving hers, and the sole fact that she was allowing him to look her right into the eyes like that said a lot about how she felt about him and his stupid idea.

“I can't.” was the only reply he deigned giving her after a too long pause, his voice sounding as hollow as always – and damn, Sue couldn't even remember how he used to sound like, before the whole losing-his-mind debacle, back when he was an arrogant but fun and agreeable-during-his-moment genius.

Back when they were dating.

Her eyes flashed red and the wolf took control for exactly one second before Sue was taking it right back and breathing in and out deeply through her teeth, watching Victor squirm on the coffee table where he was sitting in front of her, his eyes suddenly on the carpet instead of her.

“Sue, _please_.” he murmured, voice breaking on the last word.

He hunched his shoulders, his lower lip clearly quivering as he gripped his knees in a white-knuckled grip and tried to control his own wolf.

“I need you to do this for me.”

“I already did too much Victor. Look where it's gotten you.” she replied, not raising her voice by fear that it was going to make the tears in her throat audible. “I should have ordered you to do something so much earlier… If only I had–”

“ _Sue_.” he cut her.

His voice was tight. Too tight, just like the rest of his body as he rounded his back and curled up on himself. His forehead was brushing Sue's knee and she slowly reached out with her shaking right hand to touch the back of his head, tears prickling at the back of her eyes when Victor whined at the touch and hunched over tighter.

“If I let you do that, you might never come back.” she murmured, not entirely managing to swallow back a sob.

Victor sobbed too, his whole body shuddering with it.

“I'm already too broken. It's maybe too late.” he said, voice muffled by his knees, not that it made a difference for Sue who heard perfectly and received the words like a punch in the sternum.

Her heart broke as she violently grabbed him by the upper-arms and pushed him up and flush against her.

He melted into her hug, wrapping his arms around her and actually moving to straddle her thighs, whining low in his throat as soon as he had his face buried against her throat and her fingers combing through his messy hair.

“I love you so much Victor.” she whispered against his ear, rocking back and forth on the couch, “I can't lose you.”

Victor's answering sound was nothing human or wolf like. It just sounded broken, like him, and Sue knew in that moment that he was right. They didn't have a choice if they wanted him to have a chance at healing.

That didn't make it easier.

Closing her eyes tightly and burying her nose against his shoulder, Sue memorized the weight and feel of him in her arms one last time before letting her wolf take the lead.

“Do it.” she said in that too-rough wolf voice.

Victor whined one last time before executing her order.

 

 

***

 

 

The joke Johnny had thought about when he had read Sue's emergency text died right on his tongue when he entered the living room and got a look at his sister's face.

Behind him, Peter sensed his worry and reached for his wrist, squeezing reassuringly.

Everyone except for Victor was already sitting there, even Loki, and one quick glance around told him that no one had any idea what this was about – which was worrying, because at least _Jim_ would know if something had happened.

Johnny didn't have to think before taking the last free spot on the couch and pulling Peter with him to sit between his legs, plastering himself to his mate's back as soon as they were settled.

“Now that everyone is here,” started Sue, her eyes turned to the fireplace, arms crossed tightly over her chest and her voice sounding strange, “I have something to tell you.”

Jim gave him a look, clearly thinking the same thing as him, but it was actually Namor who raised an eyebrow and talked.

“Shouldn't we wait for Von Doom?”

Sue's fingers flexed around her arms.

“This is the reason I asked you all to come so quickly.” she replied and really, the last time Johnny had heard that tone was back in their early days as werewolves.

It slapped him right in the face, the realization that Sue was struggling to keep her wolf controlled.

“Sue...” he breathed out, instinctively wrapping his arms tighter around Peter when his sister finally turned to look at him.

There were tears in her eyes.

Reed jumped to his feet, all color leaving his face, when their Alpha didn't speak and only bit down on her lower lip and stared at her brother.

“What is going on?” he asked, sounding on the verge of crying, “He's fine, right? I would know if he wasn't, I would _feel_ it. Right?! Please, tell me he's alright. _Please_.” he begged, rapid-fire and the bitter smell of panic rolling off of him even quicker than the words were rolling off his tongue.

Sue looked down at the floor, uncrossed her arms, took a step closer to everyone, recrossed her arms and finally turned her eyes to a still standing and totally motionless Reed.

“He's fine, but he decided to let the wolf take control. Indefinitely.” she announced, her voice not wavering at all even as Reed, along with Peter and Namor, flinched.

From the corner of his eyes, Johnny saw Loki grimacing and getting up to stride off to the closest window and face it. Ben's hand reflexively grabbed his and squeezed tight enough to hurt. Five claws bit into the skin of his leg when Peter gripped him there, but it was like his brain couldn't understand any of it. The only thing he could register was the fact that Reed limply fell back down on the couch, Jim immediately wrapped an arm around his shoulders and Sue murmured something indecipherable before quickly leaving the room.

For a minute, no one moved, an eery silence filling the space between all of them.

Reed broke it by howling, long and pained, and one by one they joined him, until it felt like Johnny's ears were bleeding as much as his eyes were crying.

 

 

***

 

 

“I won't notify the Marrok of this recent development.” quietly said Loki over brunch the next day.

Sue slowly nodded, not looking up from her pancakes, and ignored Jim's warm hand on her shoulder as she grabbed her glass of orange juice and sipped at it.

There was no other sound in the kitchen.

Peter, Johnny and Ben had left pretty early in the morning, probably to escape the horrible smell of sorrow drifting around the house, Reed hadn't left his bedroom and Victor was still in the wild, having disappeared into the backyard fifteen minutes after shifting into a wolf.

It was down to Sue, Jim, Namor and Loki now, and no one seemed willing to talk except him.

“I'm also prepared to leave your territory, if this would help your pack getting through...” he drifted off, not knowing how to call the situation. “Through this.” he decided after a beat, keeping his eyes on Sue even as the two other wolves around the table glanced at him.

“No.” she immediately replied, setting her glass down and visibly hesitating before looking up at him, meeting his eyes straight on.

With any other Alpha, he would have flashed his red, submission or not, this was just the way he reacted to someone defying him so obviously – except that this wasn't a challenge on Sue's part. She didn't care about how strong he was and if she could overpower him. She was just looking at him, Alpha to Alpha, and probably searching for some answer to her torments in his eyes, because he was older and more experienced than her, and she was clearly lost.

“Stay.” she added after a while, neither of them moving. “You're pack after all.”

Pursing his lips, Loki blinked and looked down at the table in a clear sign of submission – which was a first for him.

 _Pack_.

That sounded foreign and fell like a weight on his chest.

He nodded though, and pretended that he couldn't feel the two other pairs of eyes in the room burning on him. There were more pressing matters than his sensibility.

 

 

***

 

 

Reed got out of his bedroom and walked out to the backyard approximately twelve seconds before a big black wolf with familiar blue eyes appeared at the very far off side of it.

It was the middle of the night, and Victor had been gone for a whole week, but nothing could have stopped Reed from falling to his knees on the damp grass and baring his throat when the wolf ran the few meters separating them and collided with him hard enough to take his breath away.

Reed fell back flat on his back, a hundred kilos of furry wolf pressing down on his chest and a warm nose nuzzling his neck and collarbones.

“Victor.” he pathetically moaned, gripping a handful of black fur and pressing his mate tighter against him, not caring one bit if he was suffocating under his weight.

He closed his eyes as tight as he could, until he could see sparks of color behind his eyelids, trying to keep his tears and sobs at bay as the big horrible knot of dread and panic in his gut was finally starting to loosen.

Victor, or at least his wolf, licked a long strip of skin, from collarbone to ear, and howled loudly up at the dark sky when that got a tiny sound out of Reed's throat.

“God, Victor...” sighed Reed, burying his whole face against the scuff of his neck and taking a deep breath in, the smell of him grounding and reassuring. “Don't you ever dare do this to me again. Do you understand? Don't you _ever_ _leave me_ again!”

Victor whined and very gently bit down on the part where his left shoulder met his neck, which was the first apology he had ever received from his mate.

That thought made him snort as tears started running down his cheeks.

 

 

***

 

 

Johnny wrapped an arm around Peter's waist and kissed him on the jaw, trying to be a comforting presence for his mate who was literally shaking in fear in a corner of the living-room.

“I'm so sorry.” said Reed, for the seventh time in as many minutes, looking absolutely unapologetic.

In fact, he was smiling brighter than ever, which said a lot about Victor as a mate that he was making him happier when he was on four legs and unable to talk.

“Pete...” murmured Johnny when he realized that Peter hadn't blinked in quite a while, and didn't seem to want to say anything at all. “Come on, I know seeing him brings back a traumatic experience, but I really need you to not freak out so much, because it's starting to freak _me_ out.”

Namor sent him a quick glance, an eyebrow raised, before he was focusing back on the book between his hands – not that Johnny payed him more than three seconds of attention, because then Peter was turning into his hold and grabbing him by the shoulder in a grip tight enough to hurt a little.

“I don't think I can do it if he's gonna be a wolf for ever.”

“It's only temporary!” said Reed, his hand stopping for a second his combing through Victor's fur, making him groan softly.

Peter ran out of the room fast enough that Johnny didn't have time to stop him.

Gaping for a second at the stairs his mate had just ran to, Johnny turned to glare at Victor and pointed an accusing index at him.

“I swear to God Victor, if my mate runs away from me a second time, I'm coming after your crazy ass.”

The wolf groaned even more softly than the first time, not even opening his eyes or moving from his position, stretched out on Reed's lap.

Really, he shouldn't have been surprised that Victor Von Doom would continue to be an asshole even when he wasn't in control.

Namor snorted and threw his book at him when Johnny insulted him under his breath.


End file.
